Archive for November, 2011

But this crawling panic and insane workload is a great learning experience. College is all about preparing for the real world, and this is one of life’s favorite lessons to teach: You’ve screwed up badly and there will soon be a reckoning. How do you deal with that?

In the game of life college isn’t even easy mode, it’s the bonus level.

Students spend the days leading up to exams stockpiling handouts, photocopies, printouts and textbooks by the video game logic that simply owning books makes you smarter. [Scott: I can attest that merely carrying books in your Inventory increases your skills in Arcanum.]

In my time working at universities, one thing I noticed without fail was that the terrible students would “study” by piling up work all around them, then sit there wasting time and being miserable until the clock said they were finished. Which is actually brilliant preparation because that’s exactly the type of job they’ll get.

If you’ve ever been to college, or a coffee shop within two miles of one, you’ve seen a student painting their notes like a My Little Pony in drag. In Thailand.

Some students spend longer trying to reach the perfect setup than Buddhist Monks spend trying to reach Nirvana, and with less tangible results.

Many students think of preparing for exams like Dragon Ball Z: You focus and concentrate all sorts of power with endless text for weeks, then fire it all out in one perfect blast.

– if you’re on an Indian Ocean island when the next tsunami hits, try calling Libya instead of the United States for help and see where it gets you.

– the preeminent economic power on the planet will be a one-party state with a Communist Politburo and a largely peasant population, no genuine market, no human rights, no property rights, no rule of law, no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom of association.

– The politico-media class of this country seems to think it entirely normal that we should spend two months in tense, difficult, painstaking negotiations over how to go seven billion steps forward—and then breezily spend 20 minutes going 447 billion steps backwards.

– Today, the government of the United States borrows $2 billion every 11 hours. We could have 220 Savings and Loan scandals for the cost of the Obama jobs bill. We could have 500 Savings and Loan scandals for the cost of one Obama stimulus package. We could have 850 Savings and Loan scandals for the cost of this year’s budget deficit.

– Here’s another example of the kinds of dollars that are being thrown around now. The Obama administration’s $38.6 billion clean-technology program was supposed to “create or save 65,000 jobs.” Half the money has been spent, $17.2 billion, and we have 3,545 jobs to show for it. That works out to an impressive $4,851,904.09 per green job created. A world record! People say America can’t be number one anymore, but mister, we’re number one at this. The previous world record was held by Spanish taxpayers who subsidized every job on a solar panel assembly line to the tune of $800,000 per post. I’ll bet Spain thought that record was safe for a couple of years. Not so fast, amigos. The American taxpayers took it and sextupled it—not $800,000 per green job, but $4,800,000 per green job. I’d like to see those cheeseparing Spaniards reclaim that record any time soon!

-Now consider the people who went rampaging through the streets this summer in London. These are the children of dependency, people who have been marinated in stimulus within an inch of their lives, and they’re good for nothing but lobbing concrete through store windows so they can steal the latest models of electronic toys. … These are the great-grandchildren of a tiny island that stood alone against the Germans during the Blitz in that terrible year after the fall of France. If those Britons of mid-century were to come back, they would assume they had landed in some bizarro alternative universe—until, like Charlton Heston rounding the corner and seeing the shattered Statue of Liberty poking up out of the sands, they realize that the Planet of the Apes is their own. The evil of big government is not that it is a waste of money, but that it lays waste to people.

– Israelis are on the military call-up list until 55—or about the age a Greek hairdresser gets to retire on full salary. … Israel implemented the terms of the Oslo accords, and in return Israelis got an Arafatist terror squat on their Eastern flank, suicide bombers on their buses, Iranian proxies to their north and west—and, in the wider world, isolation, demonization and delegitimization accompanied by a resurgent and ever more respectable anti-Semitism.

– Washington and its geriatric EU allies wanted the Copenhagen climate change deal in 2009, the biggest exercise in punitive liberalism ever mounted, an embryo exercise in global government. Brazil and India joined with China to block it. It’s a mark of the perversity of the age that it takes the Politburo to save global capitalism.

-For as the past few years have taught us, the great thing about the United States is that it is not Europe. When the economy headed south in 2008 and 2009, everywhere around the planet, people besieged their parliaments, asking them, “Why didn’t you, the government, do more for us?” They did it in Iceland. They did it in Bulgaria. They did it in Lithuania. They did it in Greece. They did it in the United Kingdom. They did it in France. The United States is the only country in the world where a mass movement took to the streets in 2009 to say we could do just fine if you, the government, stayed the hell out of our pockets and the hell out of our lives.

– Every time Barack Obama stands at his teleprompter and is forced to pretend that he’s interested in deficit reduction, we have taken a step toward that Milton Friedman reality. You have to create the conditions, as the Tea Party and the town hall meetings did, whereby the wrong people are forced to do the right things.

Ten years later, although it cannot be said that Islamophobia has disappeared, Western perspectives on Islam have become more measured and based on better knowledge. One of the biggest boosts to the image of Islam and Muslims has been the Arab Spring.

Suddenly the images of Muslims were young, modern, and protesting not about the West but about their own corrupt leaders. Although they did not explicitly talk about religion, in 2011 the Middle East became associated with the yearning for freedom and democracy, one not too different from what developed countries enjoyed.

Women were seen at the forefront of the revolution, both head-scarved and not, and changed the image of the oppressed Muslim woman.

The reality? The Arab Spring has led to a surge in the power held by hardcore Islamists bent on jihad. Oh, and women are still treated like chattel. Think that will improve as the Muslim Brotherhood wrests control?

More Horrendous Details Surface On Lara Logan Gang Rape – It has also been revealed that she was stripped, punched and slapped by the crowd, which was labeling her a spy and chanting ‘Israeli’ and ‘Jew’ as they beat her. And medical sources have revealed that marks on her body were consistent with being whipped and beaten with the makeshift poles that were used to fly flags during the demonstration.

Women Continue to Struggle During Post-Arab Spring Transitions – “A pattern of targeting politically active women has emerged,” wrote Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley, who leaves this week to visit with female activists in Egypt and Indonesia. “Local activists report being assaulted, stripped, sexually baited, and threatened with charges of prostitution and virginity tests. There appears to be a policy of trying to intimidate women out of the political sphere through this gender violence.”

Mob Rule Does Not Equal Stability – It was argued that the Arab Spring was a move towards a freer and more humane society in the Muslim countries of the Middle East. After all, they couldn’t be any worse than the dictatorships which they overthrew. If only that were so. In Egypt last week we found state broadcasters loyal to the military junta urging ‘honourable Egyptians’ to help the army to put down the ‘sons of dogs’ (Coptic Christians) protesting the destruction of their churches. The ‘honourable Egyptians’ soon obliged, roaming the streets armed with rocks and sticks and, with the connivance and active participation of the police and army, attacking and even murdering Christians.

The View From Garbage City – This issue of sectarian tension lurks behind the election campaign now being waged across Egypt. People don’t often speak about it directly, but it’s an abiding fear here — as in most other countries shaken by the Arab Spring. The question is whether, as democracy empowers Islamist parties across the Arab world, the Christian minorities will have a viable future.

Obama Lost Egypt? – Islamists claimed a decisive victory on Wednesday as early election results put them on track to win a dominant majority in Egypt’s first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the most significant step yet in the religious movement’s rise since the start of the Arab Spring. The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.[Scott: Women like MARINA MAHATHIR, oh teh irony!]

Hamas is spoiling for a fight – But why – after being so soundly defeated by Israel two years ago – would Hamas want to go to war again. Barry has an interesting theory about that and it’s one that merits consideration. Barry believes that Hamas is hoping in a best case scenario to draw Egypt into a war with Israel, and in a less-than-best-case scenario to draw hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood volunteers to Gaza through the now-open borders to fight against Israel.

Victory of Islamists in Tunisia sets tone of “Arab Spring” elections – The success of a formerly banned Islamist party in the Tunisian election is expected to define the post Arab Spring political landscape, as their Egyptian counterparts also anticipate victory and Libya sets up a new regime based on sharia law. … The ousted leaders of all three countries had kept a lid on Islamists, who have been unleashed in the wake of the respective downfalls of President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali of Tunisia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Islamists Take Over Egypt – Library of Alexandria to Be Burned Again; Food for Half-Price The Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt, the largest and most significant library of the ancient world, is now being targeted by radical Muslims who seek to replace it with a mosque. Radical Islamic groups claim that the library’s art programs, which include music and ballet dancing, spread “depravity” in Egyptian society.

From Arab Spring to post-Islamist summer – It is, therefore, not surprising that when Mr. Erdogan, during his Cairo visit, said Egyptians should aspire for a “secular state,” Muslim Brotherhood leaders roundly rebuked him.

Thus, although no Muslim ever asked for it, some people in the US insist that there are plans to impose syariah law there. The media stokes the hysteria and stigmatisation. Unjust accusations and calls for depriving them of citizenship becomes the norm.

The reality? Plenty of individuals and organizations openly and actively push for sharia implementation in the USA (and elsewhere in the supposedly secular West), to say nothing of those who advocate for it under the radar. Always be careful with absolute statements, it only takes one contrary example to defeat your entire premise.

70% of American Muslims Say US Should Impose Sharia: Legalized Polygamy – …nearly 70 percent said they believe that the U.S. should legalize polygamy…42 percent of those surveyed said they were either in, or knew others in polygamous marriages within the local Muslim community. Thirty nine percent said they would engage in a polygamous marriage if it were legal in the United States. … “And since a Shari’ah is understood as a law with God at its center, it is not possible in principle to limit the Shari’ah to some aspects of human life and leave out others.”[Tipped by hutchrun]

List of Shariah Organizations – Muslim Education Action Center of America … “We especially look for organizations that share our philosphical approach to the spread of Islam and the establishment of Sharia worldwide.”

List of Shariah Organizations – CAIR promotes a radical Islamic vision, as evidenced by the fact that its co-founder Omar Ahmad told a Fremont, California audience in July 1998: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran … should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” In a similar spirit, co-founder Ibrahim Hooper told a reporter in 1993: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

Sharia’s Encroachment into American Courts – The Islamic Thinker’s Society, another American group with members indicted or involved in terrorism, actively calls for Shariah law and is taking part in Shariah 4 America’s rally.

CAIR asks Indiana lawmakers to allow sharia law – In opposing a yet-to-be introduced bill that opposes the use of Islamic sharia law in Indiana, terror-linked Islamic group CAIR once again signals its intent to have Islamic sharia law legally recognized in the United States. … Note the Islamist nuance of “over and above state and federal law.” Not yet, but they do want sharia law, which is all the more reason to ban it.

Study: 62% of Muslims in Canada want some form of Sharia – A newly released survey suggests a large number of Muslims living in Canada will not disown Al-Qaida. The study, conducted by the MacDonald Laurier Institute, found 65% of Muslims questioned said they would “repudiate absolutely” the terrorist organization, while 35% would not do so.

Islamic Sharia Law Court Opens in Belgium – An Islamic Sharia law court has been established in Antwerp, the second-largest city in Belgium. The Sharia court is the initiative of a radical Muslim group called Sharia4Belgium. Leaders of the group say the purpose of the court is to create a parallel Islamic legal system in Belgium in order to challenge the state’s authority as enforcer of the civil law protections guaranteed by the Belgian constitution.

Muslim Group Seeks to Ban Sharia Law in America – In Oklahoma, courts are debating whether citizens have the right to ban Sharia law. And in Michigan, a group of Muslims have actually come out in strong opposition to Islamic law in America. In the case of Oklahoma, a 2010 ballot initiative put a stop to considerations of Islamic laws in making state court decisions. The measure, which passed by a 70 percent margin, was challenged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Summary of Me

scottthongblog[at]yahoo[dot]com

Seeking truth, hating lies.

Oh my labels!

Free thinking, but not a Free Thinker.
A Christian and a scientist, but not a Christian Scientist.
Believing in a universal church, but not a Catholic.
Trying to be a saint in these latter days, but not a Latter Day Saint.
A witness for Jehovah, but not a Jehovah's Witness.
Sumitted to God, but not a Muslim.
Seeking knowledge, but not a Gnostic.
Rational in thinking, but not a Rationalist.
Upholding humanity, but not a Humanist.
A supporter of liberation, but not a Liberal.
A supporter of democracy, but not a Democrat.
Acknowledging the importance of social values, but not a Socialist.
Seeking and valuing truth, but not a Truther.